The underdevelopment of Africa's poorest countries has been at focus of
international development politics for decades. A myriad of development and
reform projects has been launched, only to be abandonned later. So far few
attempts to overcome the vicious cycle of poverty of these so-called Least
Developed Countries have shown remarkable success.
One of the core reasons for this is
the weak bureaucratic infrastructure of sub-Saharan countries. But how exactly
did development reforms initiated by industrialized countries affect African
public administration? Are they actually the cause for the region's poor
economic performance?
This paper aims to concentrate on
the civil service sector of underdeveloped sub-Saharan countries with special
regard to Ghana.
It is important to ask questions such as: "What kind of reforms were implemented?"
before diving into the complex task of evaluating the latter. Only then can a different
approach to possible improvement in the civil service (and, hence in the
countries' development) be discussed.
Thus, in a first step, this paper
will focus on some major reforms in African countries such as Ghana that are committed to change.
These reforms underline the weakness of the attempts to change the system of
public management.
A second step will then be devoted
to suggestions of a new direction for the handling public administration in Africa.
In a last step, this work then aims
to draw a conclusion and answer the initial question whether public sector
reforms in Africa so far actually inhibit or
support development.
Nikolina-Romana Milunovic is a student at Zeppelin University with an interest in public management and governance. She is Co-Founder of the YATA Bodensee at Zeppelin University.
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